adminCollin Matiza Sports Editor
AFTER watching their club system slowly sinking into oblivion in the past couple of years, the Zimbabwe Handball Federation have embarked on a revival drive which will see them registering clubs that will soon form a viable national league. Amon Madzvamuse, the ZHF president, said yesterday that they were in the process of transforming the sport in this country by going on a “massive campaign” of registering clubs who will automatically be affiliated to the country’s handball motherbody in their efforts to form a proper league structure in Zimbabwe.
According to Madzvamuse, there have not had serious club competitions for more than five years now with schools’ tournaments taking centre stage.
And, during the same period, no club has properly affiliated with the federation.
Lack of money was also crippling the ZHF’s efforts to register more clubs and to introduce the sport to all the four corners of the country.
But the ZHF president, Madzvamuse, yesterday said they were determined to open a new chapter in the sport which will see them coming up with a proper, vibrant national league system in the country.
“As the ZHF, we have now started registering clubs so that we formulate our (national) league in a professional way. So, all handball clubs that are not registered with us are now being asked to come and register with the ZHF so that we can establish the number of existent clubs in the country and then we will come up with a national league,” Madzvamuse said.
This came after the ZHF managed to secure a “prospective” sponsor for the national league.
“We have now secured a prospective sponsor for our national league and we are doing this (the re-registering of clubs) to make sure that we have a national league in place and then we will draw up a fixture list for our national championship.
“The last time we tried to form a league, the clubs which registered with the ZHF could not formulate a league according to the provisions of our constitution because for us to have a proper league system in place, we need at least 12 clubs that will be playing handball at a competitive level.
“And now we are looking at registering community clubs and not schools. So, we are calling all former handball players and coaches alike, who are not attached to any club, to come together and form clubs and they will be told on how to go about it in registering these clubs with the ZHF.
“This is our second appeal for the clubs to come forward and be properly registered with the ZHF so that they will be considered for our new national league,” Madzvamuse said.
He said many clubs had gone bust because of lack of tournaments and there was also no national league system in place in the past few years.
Interestingly, despite the absence of competitive handball at club level, Zimbabwe is currently ranked third in the Zone Six Region.
In July this year, the ZHF managed to send a strong contingent of 96 athletes and officials to the Partille Cup in Gothenburg, Sweden, as part of their efforts to arouse interest in handball in Zimbabwe.
The Partille Cup is a youth team handball competition that is held annually in Gothenburg and is open for both boys and girls of ages 10 to 21 years.
At this year’s Partille Cup, Zimbabwe were represented by teams from three schools – Harare’s Girls Gigh School, Howard High School of Chiweshe and Mashonaland East’s Chishawasha Mission Primary School.
They were joined at this big tournament by Mashrhino, a girls Under-12 select side from Mashonaland West Province.
And Zimbabwe’s participation at this year’s Partille Cup managed to arouse a lot of interest in the sport among a number of Zimbabwean sports followers both at home and abroad and they included forgotten former middle and long-distance runner Brian Sheriff.
Sheriff, who is now based in Hiroshima, Japan, recently pledged to support the ZHF in their development programmes and said he was going to source some handball equipment for them through a top Japanese sports goods manufacturing company, Mikasa Corporation, which he works for.
In fact, Sheriff has already engaged Mikasa and a delegation from that company will soon be visiting Zimbabwe on a “fact-finding mission” in which they intend to meet a number of national sports associations and other key stakeholders, including the ZHF.
Meanwhile, the ZHF are looking at sending four coaches for an International Handball Federation advanced coaching course that will be held in Johannesburg, SouthAfrica, from September 17 to 23.
The ZHF president, Madzvamuse, said yesterday that they have already identified nine “aspiring” candidates for this course and they are Prince Chimonero of Masvingo, Matabeleland South’s Sipho Mahlangu, Alfred Mugwagwa of Bulawayo, Midlands’ Farayi Gwisai and Edson Choroodza, Allan Mandeya from Manicaland, Clemence Tauro and Cleopatra Mareverwa, both from Mashonaland East, and Mashonaland West’s Alfios Mhondiwa.
“All these candidates have given us their curriculum vitaes for us to look at them and then we will come up with the names of the four coaches who we will send to Johannesburg for this IHF advanced coaching course,” Madzvamuse said.
Online Reporter